understand, Mick. What do you have in mind?”
He turned to the board and began to explain, “I have an idea, but you’ll need to spend some money.”
“Boy, that’s a big surprise!” I laughed with my answer.
“We need Penske shock absorbers if we are going to take a shot at the National Championship, and we need them now.” Mickey was serious with his statement.
I leaned back on my stool before I asked, “Really? How soon?”
“Yesterday.”
“Really?”
“Yes, really.”
“Tell me more, Mick.”
I went to the old red refrigerator and grabbed drinks for the team. I offered a package of cheese crackers to our group, but no one was interested. I returned to my seat and watched Mickey complete his drawing.
In his younger days, Mickey had taken a few drafting classes which made his artwork better than expected. I was staring at a redesign of the Midget’s suspension system. There were lowering brackets for the attachment of the trailing arms on the rear-end housing and metal towers designed to hold the longer Penske shocks at all four corners of the car. His overall plan was to lower the car. It was a brilliant design and would be easy to work on in the future, but it was definitely going to take a lot of effort to get there.
Mickey said, “Do you see what I have done here, guys?”
Raymond’s mind raced to keep up. He wanted to know everything.
Richard nodded in agreement. He didn’t need the details but rather only his part in the plan’s execution. I recognized that Mickey’s concept would require a few mathematical calculations before moving forward.
“You are creating a way to lower the car, am I right?” I asked, while popping the top on my Dr. Pepper.
“Exactly!” He pointed at me with his marker in hand. “If we drop the car down closer to the road, we will also drop….”
“The center of gravity,” I interrupted. “And dropping the center of gravity will induce less weight transfer to the outside tires of the car with cornering, which will effectively decrease stress on the tires. In essence, the flatter the car stays with cornering, the less wear on the tires.”
Mickey smiled at my deduction.
“But Mickey, that only works if the springs aren’t too stiff. We will need…”
It was his turn to interrupt, “Penske shocks! I plan on running very stiff shocks with super soft springs. This is the best scenario to keep those qualifying tires working for a whole race. I ran it by Shail, and he is in full agreement.”
“Very cool, Mick,” I replied and tossed an entire cheese cracker into my mouth.
“And guess what, John? You get to do the math!” Mickey said with a smile then paused to take a drink from his Diet Mountain Dew.
I sat up and ran brief calculations in my mind. Math, in general, came easily to me. My mother scored a 100% on the National Board Exam in mathematics, and, fortunately, I had a mild dose of her inherent brilliance. My Dad, who had been Dean of Florida Atlantic University would joke that we got our brains from our mother and our looks from him. Many a truth is said in jest.
“I can do that, Mick, and it may be easier than you think. We just need to make sure we can lower the car until it touches the ground, then have enough room on the shock and spring adjustments to raise it back up to our desired ride height. But that will require having the shocks in hand.”
He nodded and said, “Do you see why we needed them yesterday?”
“Yep. When is Jim’s next race?”
“It will be at Topeka in six weeks. Then we go back to Hallett for the July 4th weekend. We should have enough time to complete the work before the Topeka race, depending on when you hand me the shocks.”
“I understand. I will talk with Jim tonight. Is that all you need from me? I have to pick up a few things for Nigel.”
“Yes, that’s all I need. Just keep sending money!” Mickey said with a smile. The rest of the crew expressed his sentiments with double thumbs-up and laughter.
When I pulled into our garage, I could see Nigel standing at the door to the kitchen. He had his glove in hand and approached the car as I got out. He had been invited last weekend to join the Coatney family at the lake. He spent Saturday night and all-day Sunday with them, enjoying time with Eric. No baseball was involved, which was probably a good thing. It gave him time to process his situation and, boy, was he ready! I looked down at his face. His brown eyes no longer held the look of defeat but burned with fiery determination. It was obvious he had set a new goal, and it was primary in his entire being.
Nigel had always been a bit of an On/Off switch. Whenever he established a goal, he went full tilt, flat out, wide open, until it was attained. Once accomplished, it was quickly forgotten with a new mission occupying his mental spotlight. Baseball was no different.
“We are going to the batting cages tonight, right Dad?” This seemed more of a command than a question.
“Listen, man, I don’t know if we will make it tonight. We need to pick up some equipment before we go back. I’ve been doing a lot of reading, and there is a video I want you to watch. Let me change my clothes and we’ll go over to the sporting goods store”.
“Can I go too?” Hans’s voice came from the kitchen.
I picked him up saying, “Absolutely, Buddy!”
I looked straight into my oldest son’s eyes and said, “Nigel, believe me, I have a plan. If we don’t make it to the batting cages tonight, it won’t be long before we get there.”
He smiled with his reply, “Okay Dad, let’s go. I want to get back soon because Mom made spaghetti!”
When we walked into the store, Hans dropped my hand and ran over to the row of bicycles. The baseball section was adjacent to the bikes, so I could keep an eye on him as we shopped. We quickly found what we needed. Nigel had a problem with the sting of the bat in his hands when he made contact with the ball. I had him try on a few different sizes of batting gloves until he found a pair that fit. Our first item was checked off the list and Hans joined our search when his curiosity prevailed.
One of the books I had read explained that young hitters need light-weight bats, to create fast bat head speed. I recalled how force equals mass times acceleration. Therefore, acceleration or speed, increases the force of the bat counteracting the force of the approaching ball. This was a much better solution than increasing mass, which meant a heavier bat for young arms. No bat is lighter than a T-ball bat, so I picked one up and handed it to Nigel.
“Dad, this is like the one I used in T-ball. I don’t think this is right for baseball. It’s for kids.”
I had to smile at my eight-year-old’s definition of ‘a kid.’
“Trust me, man. Now go to the home plate they have set up over at the temporary indoor backstop.”
